Service Forum

[Ices]

Hi, I have an R40 laptop that has a supervisor password set, and I need an interface so I can retrieve the supervisor password. The laptop is for a friend that leaves for college at the beginning of next week, and I need to have it ready for her before she leaves. Is there anyone in the states that has an interface and is willing to overnight it to me, provided I pay the appropriate fees for the interface and for shipping?

Please let me know either in this thread, or email me at icescow@gmail.com as soon as possible.

I would really appreciate any help anyone can give me.

[Ices]

I just wanted to let everyone here know that I no longer need the interface. I didn't realize how easy it was to build the simple EEPROM reader. I decided to build one myself, and it worked perfectly.

I want to thank Victor and everyone else involved in contributing to all of the information contained here. Without the tutorials, pictures, and schematics, I wouldn't of been able to complete this very stressful task.

Now, to share what I had to do. Sorry I don't have any pictures, but my interface looks much like the one posted on page 3 of the tutorial thread.

First, I got all of the parts required to build the interface from my local radio shack. 2 5.1v zener diodes, 2 2.2k ohm resistors, a DB9 female serial connector, some 20 gauge wire, some electrical tape, some PC repair solder, and some gator clips.

I put the interface together in about an hour and a half, as I am not very experienced with soldering. I made each of the 3 connecting wires about 5 feet long, and attached gator clips to the ends of each of them.

Now, on to the laptop. It was an R40, type 2893. I used the picture tutorial posted on page 2 of the practice thread, and it took me step by step through dismantling the laptop. That made things MUCH easier, as I don't like taking apart laptops as it is. I dismantled the laptop, located the EEPROM, and used the schematic posted on the first page of the tutorial thread to find the proper connection points.

Now, the EEPROM chip. Like I said before, I'm not very good at soldering at all, which is why I didn't want to even attempt this in the first place. I used some VERY small wires leftover from when I had my PS2 modded, and it was small enough to just slide under each of the legs of the appropriate points on the EEPROM chip. Using fine tweezers and a lot of patience, I eventually was able to tie a wire to each of the three connecting points. I used the electrical tape to secure and insulate each one of the wires, making sure the exposed parts of the wire wasn't touching anything else. I then proceeded to partially reassemble the laptop to attempt the eeprom dump. I followed the steps in the tutorial thread to a T. Booting the laptop to the password screen, connecting the wires GROUND FIRST, and then running the program. It worked like a charm on the first attempt! I used IBMpass 1.1, it gave me the password, and it worked perfectly. A useless laptop turned into a perfectly running machine.

Again I would like to thank Victor and everyone involved for providing me and everyone else with such useful and detailed information. I couldn't of done it without everyone involved. Thank you very much.

[victor]

First of all I want to apologize for this late reply, but I couldn't do much to help you quicker with the interface, you made the best choice by building the device yourself.
That was what we want, to give everyone the chance to do it, without much complications. Besides, when you succeed, everything looks so cool, the feeling are really great!

Well done and thanks for sharing your story here.

Victor

[Ices]

No need for apologies Victor. It would of been impossible to ship me one in the time I needed it, especially being an international shipment, so I started doing some research. At first, the schematics were jibberish, and then I compared the schematics to the picture of the simple interface in the tutorial thread, and realized just how easy it was.

You have no idea how suprised I was when I started up the reader program and watched it actually work. I was expecting it to fry both machines

Again, none of this could of been done without the programs you wrote, the tutorials and schematics you wrote, and all of the pictures and information everyone has contributed.

Thank you so much.